THE HUNTING OF CUPID
By: George Peele
On the snowie browes of Albion
sueet woodes sueet running brookes
YT chide in a pleasant tune and make quiet murmur
leaving the lilie mints and waterflowers in their gentle glide
making her face the marke of his wondring eies and
his eyes the messengers of his woundit hart
Like a candle keepith but
a litil roome zet blazeth round about
Heardgroome wt
his strauberrie lasse
Some wt his sueet hart making false position
a schort sillabe wher a long one should be
Some a false supposition
to celebrate mistres holiday in Idlenesse
What thing ia love (for wel I wot) love is a thing
it is a pricke, it is a sting
it is a pretti, prettie thing
it is a fire, it is a cole
whose flame creepes in at eurie hole
and is as my wit doth best devise
loves dwelling is in ladys eies
from whence do glance loves piercing darts
that mak such holes into or harts
and al the world herin accord
love is a great and mightie lord
And when he list to mount so hie
with Venus he in heaven doth lie
and ever more hath been a god
since Mars and sche plaid even and od.
Kis a little and use not
Why kissings good?
To stirre zour bloud to make zou wel dispos'd to play
ab aquilone omne malum
wold have moued teares in vreath herselfe
wrinckled sorrow sate in furrowes of a faire face
famous for his il fortune
zou that think ther is no heaven but on earth
zou that sucke poison insteed of honney
he excedeth fiends in crueltie and fortune in unconstancie
Set up Cynthea by day and Citherea by nigt sche strakid his head and mist
his hornes
who bluntly bespake her grew this sueet rose in this soure stalke
At Venus entreate for Cupid her sone
these arrowes by Vlcan are cunningly done
the first is love the second shafte is hate
but this is hope from whence sueet comfort springs
this jelousie in bassest minds doth duell
his mettall Vlcan's Cyclops fetcht from Hel
A smaking kis that wakt me wt the dine knew good
and eschew it praise chastnesse and follow lustful love like the old
al quicklie com home by weeping crosse
Holdeth them faster than Vlcan's fine wires kept Mars
a song to be sung for a wager a dish of damsons new
gathered off the trees
Melampus when wil love be voide of feares
when jelousie hath nather eies nor eires
Melampus tel me when is love best fed
when it hath suckie the sueet yt ease hath bred
Licoris as sueet to his as licorice
Cor sapit es a hot liver must be in a lover
To commend anay thing is the Italian way of crauing
my hart is like a point of geometrie indiuisible
and wher it goes it goes al
Hard hart that did thy reed (poore shephard) brake
thy reed yt was the trumpet of thy wit
Zet thought unworthie sound thy pheniz's praise
and with this slender pipe her glorie raise
Cupid enraged to see a thousand boyes
as faire as he sit shooting in her eies
fell doune and sche
pluckt al his plumes and made herselfe a fan
suering him her true little seruing man
Muse chuse my mistres feeds the ayre ayre feeds not her
lyt of the lyt sche is, delyt supreame
Zet so far from the lytness of her sex
for sche is the bird whose name doth end in X
Not clouds cast from the spungie element
nor darknesse shot from Orcus pitchie eyes
Zet both her shines vailed wt her arche beauties
her words such quickning odors cast
as raise the sicke and make the soundest thinke
ayre is not wholsome, til her walke be past
more then the fontaynes til the vnicornes drinke
a thousand echoes vat upon her voice
Those milkie mounts he eurie morning hants
wher to their drink his mothers doues he calls
in my younger dayes when my witts rdan a wool gathering
some prettie lye he coined
